dog study, diet related, different from wolves

This is a dedicated place for all of your questions and answers about Raw Diets. There are also some really cool groups like "Raw Fed" on the topic you can join. This forum is for people who already know they like the raw diet or sincerely want to learn more. Please remember that you are receiving advice from peers and not professionals. If you have specific health-related questions about your dog's diet, please contact your vet!

Adapting to less ideal conditions is not the same as completely evolving a different digestive tract.

Dogs have the physiology of a carnivore. I don't honestly give two spits if over time they adapted to be able to tolerate grains, I shoot for IDEAL. And no carnivore under ideal conditions eats any significant portion of grains, fruits, or vegetables.

And to assume how kibble diets are now, has always been the way dogs have eaten, is SO vastly false that its startling. Kibble has been around for barely 100 years.

Go back and read the old literature on this. Go back and see what dogs WERE actually eating over 100 years ago. A personal favorite of mine, by von Stephanitz and his breeding dogs, is outlined in great detail. Bread scrap and "biscuits (as he called them), were given in times of desperation or when convenience was demanded. They did NOT eat such things as their primary diet. He does include some grains and vegetables, but the basis of his diet is raw butcher scrap from horse and other livestock. Organs, muscles, bone.

And what he did with his dogs is more than anyone, any vet, or any scientist can possible recreate today. He CREATED a breed, one of the most successful in the history of dog breeds, and those were his guidelines.

So please explain to me how my dogs somehow evolved over the course of 100 years to require a high starch, high carb, high grain/veg/etc diet, when that's NEVER been a significant portion of their diet?

I'd really be curious to know.

Its a shame people need a peer reviewed study to tell them the obvious.

Adaptation is necessary for all species and all living things when they are living under means, struggling to survive. In this day and age, why is it necessary to continue in that same fashion? We're living in a time where people can afford the "luxuries" of weekly grocery trips and thought out meals. We look down upon people who eat processed junk food their whole lives, and admire those that live healthy lifestyles with healthy diets-- I don't understand why we don't have the same outlook with dogs.

@ Mulder: I don't know where the idea came from that people think dogs ate high-carb diets in the past, when their own owners were struggling to survive. Meat by-products were always available and plentiful. Bread was not.

It is interesting to me that I feed my dogs a high quality grain free food and see absolutely no difference to their health and well being compared to when they were fed a high quality rice and lamb kibble I have no objections to raw, just can't do it for various reasons. Could probably do home cooked but just lazy If I am not mistaken, even as little as 50 years ago, dogs were fed things like the organs , skin and maybe even bones that were from the meat going into the human's pot. The were probably healthier than the dogs that are fed crappy kibble today

Except that dogs don't have the physiology of a carnivore - they have funcitonal taste buds for sweetness, unlike cats and have multiple copies of starch digesting enzymes.

They are still biologically classified as carnivores, and still share an almost identical physical digestive structure to other carnivorous mammals. They lack a significant amount of amylase in their saliva (as opposed to humans) and have a vastly shortened intestinal track which is most efficient for meat and animal product. Have you ever fed your dog a vegetable and seen how it exits the other side? My dogs get green beans and sweet potatoes and they come out half digested within 24 hours.

If the article does prove that they have adapted over 10,000 years, then I believe it--- for small amounts of grain.

And that's the entire argument I'm giving. Again, I don't think grains are detrimental to health unless they are in large amounts. We don't like this article because companies will use it as a way to promote heavy grain diets, and no one should want that. Dogs can handle SOME grain correctly, but the author of the article seems to think that this proves we should feed high-carb/low-protein diets.

I'm not questioning the article Tycho, just your attitude, considering you are on the RAW forums here and seem to have such a median opinion of the diet

What with us "raw foodies" tromping around all over the place... in the RAW SPECIFIC forum of all places

Being able to taste sweetness (something wolves, who are also carnivores, are capable of as well), and being CAPABLE of breaking down starches does not somehow mean dogs are designed to live off high starch, high carb diets.

Yes, they are classified as carnivores. Just like berry loving bears and plant eating raccoons. Your argument fails.

So does your comparision to humans since the above mentioned animals also come short of humans yet they eat vegetable matter. And what is significant to you? DNA analysis shows that they are more adapted than wolves so an argument about the facts rather than what you feel about it would be more convincing.

"If the article".... seems that all the people objecting to the article are the same ones who haven't read it. Reading the source material is a requirement if you want to make an informed comment about it.

Mulder, I can feed raw (and I do along with kibble) without buying into the garbage, unscientific arguments you guys make up to justify your decisions. I do it because I like wathching my dogs work a rabbit or leg bone not because of some magical belief that it is the ultimate/optimal diet. And since the study finds that they are capable of breaking down starches, your point doesn't even makes sense.

This is a pretty easy forum to post on. People are very tolerant of everyones different feeding styles. No one comes on here to pick a fight, usually. I feed raw in the am and a high quality grain free kibble at night. Mostly because I was worried about the right nutrition combination and cost. My black lab had so many ear infections that we didn't even go in to see the vet anymore. We would treat, wait a week and start over. After switching to completely raw, and then the above combination she hasn't had an ear infection. In over 18 months. Not one. Even my vet is impressed. She had such bad stomach aches and gas she could clear the house. Problem solved. Most of us who switch to raw take it very seriously, know our dogs and do what is best for them. As I said eveyone here is pretty easy going, maybe if someone really wants to fight they should go over to the yahoo raw feeding forum.

You can read the full paper online for free on the Nature site using the ReadCube link. You csn't save it, but you might be able to print it.

The findings of this paper say, not that you must feed your dogs starches, but that one of the important ways that the subspecies "dog" differs from wolves in being anywhere from mildly to significantly more adapted to starches in the diet than wolves are.

No, that doesn't mean that eating starches is like eating cake.

No, they're not saying that any dog is well served by a 100% starch diet. Or even by a diet without a significant percentage of meat in the diet.

But what separated dogs from wolves was following us and eating our leftovers, until they moved in with us and our leftovers became an even bigger part of their diet.

And those leftovers have always included starches, in percentages that varied wildly according to geography and culture.

Dogs can handle starches better than wolves, and get real nutrition from them--and some strains of dogs can digest and use starches substantially better than other strains of dogs.

And, sorry, but that selection and adaptation is EXACTLY what evolution is.

So, don't be bullied by those insisting your dog would obviously do better with a grain-free diet, OR that it's dumb or pointless to feed raw. Experiment, and do what works best for your dog.

"So, don't be bullied by those insisting your dog would obviously do better with a grain-free diet, OR that it's dumb or pointless to feed raw. Experiment, and do what works best for your dog."

^^Yep. I don't honestly care what this or that study says, or what some random Internet antagonist has to say about it. Duke does vastly better on a raw, grain- and carb-free diet. I balance his diet against NRC and know he is getting what he needs. His allergies are gone, his digestion is normalized, his reactivity is lessened, his bloodwork is perfect, his coat gleams, his skin lesions/dryness are cleared up, and his teeth are beautiful